Theatrics. + 3 more by Lauren Yates

AT the community college across from Home Depot, / we gambled with Dum-Dum lollipops. We would / watch old WrestleMania tapes, and bet on our favorite / performers. Yokozuna was always my pick. // Our teacher used wrestling to teach us about / acting. He declared himself a knight, and made / a play out of a movie based on an opera.
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I dreamt of a spider last night in the bookstore
It was enshrouding bookcases with its web
I want to tell you
I was brave
That I felt
Peaceful harmonious tranquility while both the
Spider and I existed
Or that despite its two foot girth
I was not afraid
That I ate the spider’s head
Diced it up and had it with my morning eggs
That I blended the legs
Into a protein shake
Becoming strong like a Super Human Super Hero
But those are all lies
I ran in the opposite direction
I put a door between
Me and the hideous thing

Sweet, Pretty Things.

Your father was a florist,
gone before I met you,
who left behind his plants to bloom
as you grew up. A kind-of stand-in:
life in the absence of it.

When you moved back home you
sent me orchards by text message:
sweet, pretty things.

Postmodern romance, we joked:
the image of a thing
(a kind of stand-in)
is not the thing itself,
but it is something.